Apparatus for training flexible material about packages and the like



Aug. 31, 1965 Filed Aug. 28, 1965 R. D. SANSUM APPARATUS FOR TRAINING FLEXIBLE MATERIAL ABOUT PACKAGES AND THE LIKE 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 (L/Mt/ EMMZM 714%, lakm, UM 6 Mm Aug. 31, 1965 R. D. SANSUM 3,203,342

APPARATUS FOR TRAINING FLEXIBLE MATERIAL ABOUT PACKAGES'AND 'THE LIKE Filed Aug. 28, 1963 s Sheets-Sheet 2 Aug. 31, 1965 R. n. SANSUM 3,203,342

APPARATUS FOR TRAINING FLEXIBLE MATERIAL ABOUT PACKAGES AND THE LIKE Filed Aug. 28, 1963 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 United States Patent 3,203,342 APPARATUS FUR TRAINING FLEXIBLE MAT RIAL ABQUT PACKAGES AND THE LIKE Robert David Sansum, London, England, assignor to Seal- Less Strapping Limited, London, England, a corporation of Great Britain Filed Aug. 28, 1963, Ser. No. 305,173 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Sept. 18, 1962, 35,454/62 6 Claims. (Cl. 100-27) This invention is concerned with mechanism for training flexible material, such as wire or strip, about packages and the like, of the type in which said material is looped, ready for jointing at the overlap, by gripping its free end part and drawing it onto the package from a supply by means, such as a shuttle, or the actual supply itself in the form of a coil, which is circulated orbitally and unidirectionally in a binding plane, about the package, said training means being for example mounted, for this purpose, o 'a rigid ring within which the package is supported and which is revolved around it.

In such mechanism the package is usually thus supported on a horizontal platform so as to extend through the lower part of the area of said binding plane within the orbit of the training means, as for example through the opening of said ring, with the means for gripping the end of the flexible material and that for jointing the loop beneath said platform. Moreover a vertical abutment is also usually provided on the side of the platform away from which the flexible material is first drawn by the training means from said gripping means, for locating the package laterally under the thrust thereon by the loop as this tightens during the rest of the training operation.

Assuming that the mechanism is viewed with said abutment to the left of the platform and said orbit of the training means is circular, the package, when supported as described and if of a size within the normal range for which the mechanism is designed, extends sufliciently far to the right and/ or above said platform to ensure that no slack in the bight of the flexible material from the training means to the package is liable to develop during the circulation of said means, since the length of material drawn therefrom at any stage of the operation, i.e. that of the bight straight to the point of the surface of the package onto which the material is then being laid, never exceeds the combined length of the straight line from the training means to another point of said surface onto which the material is currently being laid at any subsequent stage and of the material which has meanwhile been laid between these two points. If this condition is not satisfied, as with relatively small packages which lie wholly within the bottom left hand quadrant of said orbit or lie in or extend into the bottom right hand quadrant but are of only moderate height, enough slack in the bight is liable to develop during at least part of the orbit of the training means to put the loop out of alignment with the binding plane, sufficiently indeed in the case of a loop required near the extremity of such a small package to make it liable to miss the latter altogether.

The purpose of the present invention is to adapt a mechanism of the aforementioned type for the accommodation of packages within a considerable range of sizes below those, for which it is normally intended, i.e. in whose looping slack is liable to develop, and also below the relatively narrow limits of size which it is convenient or possible to cover in-this respect by adjustment of the aforementioned lateral abutment inwardly of the orbit of the training means, by reason of the normal position of the gripping and jointing means beneath the platform, in such a way that such slack is eflectively taken up or reduced sutficiently to keep the loop in proper alignment.

3,263,342 Patented Aug. 31, 1965 In this connection it should also be borne in mind that the loop must in any case exceed in length the periphery of the package in the binding plane around which it is laid, to the extent of any required tensioning after the training operation to make the loop tight about the package. The invention is however concerned only with such slack as develops temporarily during that operation but becomes taken up by the training means itself before the conclusion thereof and not with conditions of which this is not true because of the very small size of the package and/ or extreme position thereof towards the right.

The invention accordingly provides an addition or attachment to the mechanism comprising means, engageable by the bight of the flexible material as it sweeps around the package, for thrusting on said bight in the direction opposite to its movement and thereby tightening it by bowing it out convexly in that direction whilst it continues its sweep. This engagement of the tightening means by the bight may take place at or as soon as possible after the angular position of the latter where slack begins to develop, after which said means may be movable with the bight whilst thrusting thereon resiliently. Furthermore, the engagement is preferably such that the bight becomes automatically released from said means by the retightening of the bight due to the aforementioned taking up of the slack before the conclusion of the training operation, and said means may be adapted thereupon to return to its normal position for reengagement by the next bight.

The invention will now be described by Way of example with reference to the form of bight-tightening device shown, in the accompanying drawings, applied to a wiretraining mechanism in which the looping of the wire is effected by a shuttle associated with a supply coil on a rigid ring driven unidirectionally around the package.

In these drawings:

FIGURE 1 is an isometric View with the near parts of the ring and shield broken away for clarity of illustration;

FIGURE 2 is an explanatory diagram in front elevation to show a typical development of slack in the bight;

FIGURE 3 is a diagrammatic front elevation corresponding to FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3A is a plan section along the line 3A-3A of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 4 is a similar view to that of FIGURE 3 showing a subsequent position of the training means when the wire is just being released from the bight-tightening device; and

FIGURE 4A is a similar plan section to that of FIG- URE 3A, corresponding to the FIGURE 4 position.

The mechanism is thus shown embodied in a machine comprising a platform It on which the package 11 rests projecting through the looping plane which is defined by the ring 12, and also contains the usual means for gripping the wire and for tensioning, connecting and severing the loop, generally denoted 13, along and below the front edge 14 of the platform.

The actual training means mounted on ring 12 for circulation thereby around the package, consists of a shuttle, generally denoted 15, including a final take-01f roller 15a over which the wire bight 16 passes to the package from the supply bobbin 17 and the associated tensioning rollers 1512. It will be understood that at the start of each looping operation, roller 15a is disposed just beneath the right end of the platform so that the wire extends thereto substantially horizontally from its anchoring at 13.

The position reached by the shutttle in FIGURES 1 and 3 is within the limiting positions of FIGURE 2 between which slack is liable to develop with a package of the relative size shown, whilst slack has however become taken up in the FIGURE 4 position following the shortening of the bight after it has become laid over the left hand top corner of the package.

The bight-tightening device, generally denoted 18, of this illustrated embodiment is associated with a left side vertical abutment 19 of the kind already mentioned, and which is capable of a limited degree of adjustment laterally of the ring opening by means of its mounting slots 19a on a platform. The device 18 includes a vertical channel guide 18a secured at its lower end to the abutment 19, in which guide a member 185 resiliently loaded upwards by a compression spring 180 is adapted to slide in the path of the bight 16, so that said member, at the top of its stroke, is in position to be engaged by said bight and then to be moved thereby down the guide (see FIG- URES l and 3) into position to be released from the bight at the bottom of said stroke (see FIGURE 4-) after the slack has become fully or sufiiciently taken up. The spring loading in this way of said sliding member 18b is such that it does not ofier any substantial opposition to the sweep of the bight until said lower position is reached, as determined by said member then being arrested by the spring 180 becoming fully compressed. The required release of the bight at this stage is brought about by the tilting of the finger 18d on the member 18b, through which finger the engagement of said bight is effected, said tilting taking place under the influence of the further sweep of the bight only when said member itself stops moving. For this purpose the tilting is controlled by a subsidiary tension spring 130* acting between the finger and the member and of appropriately greater strength than is exerted by the loading spring 180 during the downward stroke of the member 13b. It will be apparent that, after release of the bight, these springs serve to return the parts concerned to their normal positions,

for the next operation.

Due to the lower position of the sliding member being generally in quite close proximity to the platform, the spring loading of that member is preferably thus effected from above, by means of a compression spring thrusting upwardly from an abutment 18f within the guide against another abutment 18;; at the top of the rod 18h which extends from said member up said guide. For the same reason, and also because the release of the bight from the finger is usually required to take place from left to right as the bight is becoming substantially vertical, said finger is preferably arranged to tilt horizontally inwards towards the package about a vertical pivot 181 on the member. Such a finger may project forwardly from said member into the path of the bight and be provided with a tail 18k beyond said pivot to which the spring 18a extending to the member may be attached for controlling its inward tilting resiliently from an appropriate abutment lSl on the member, whereby it is restrained from outward tilting. Where, as in this case, wire is the flexible material, the top surface of the finger may be formed, for engaging it, with a transverse channel 18m in the binding plane, which channel may be chamfered in the manner of a countersink at its outer end 1811. for facilitating the release of the wire from this channel when the finger is tilted by the bight.

I claim:

1. In a package binding mechanism, gripping means for gripping an end part of a length of flexible material, guide means orbitally movable about a package from a starting position adjacent said gripping means for training the remainder of the length of material in a predetermined direction about the package in a binding plane, material engaging means positioned at least 180 from said gripping means and movable into and out of the binding plane within the area circumscribed by said guide means in its orbital movement about the package for releasably engaging said material as it is trained about the package by said guide means, and means for urging said material engaging means into position within the binding plane and additionally urging said material engaging means in a direction generally opposite the training movement of the material, whereby the material may be held taut by said material engaging means as it is trained about the package.

2. In a package binding mechanism, package support means, guide means orbitally movable about a package from a starting position adjacent said package support means for training a length of material about the package in a binding plane, a material engaging element mounted within the area circumscribed by said guide means in its orbital movement about the package, said element being movable into and out of the binding plane to engage and release the material about an axis extending substantially perpendicular to said support means and being additionally movable toward and away from said package support means, and means for urging said material engaging element away from said package support means and into the binding plane, whereby as said guide means trains the material about the package the material will be trained over and held taut by said material engaging element.

3. In a package binding mechanism, package support means, guide means including an element movable about a package in a binding plane for training a length of material about the package in said plane, said binding plane being transverse to the supporting surface of said package support means, material engaging means mounted above said package support means for movement into and out of the binding plane about an axis extending substantially perpendicular to said support means and for movement toward and away from said package support means, and means resiliently urging said material engaging means into said binding plane for releasable engagement with the material and urging said material engaging means away from said package support means for thrusting on the material during said engagement, whereby as said guide means trains the material about the package the material will be trained over and held taut by said material engaging means.

4. In a package binding mechanism, a substantially horizontal package support, guide means for training a length of material about a package in a binding plane transverse to the top surface of said support, an arm mounted for pivotal movement into and out of the binding plane about an axis extending transverse to the top surface of said support, said arm being slidably movable generally in the direction of its pivotal axis toward and away from said support, means resiliently urging said arm away from said support and into said binding plane, whereby as said guide means trains the material about the package the material will be trained over and be releasably held taut by said arm.

5. In a package binding mechanism, a package support, guide means movable about a package on said support for training a length of material about the package in a binding plane transverse to the top surface of said support, package engaging means for aligning said package on said support, an elongate fixed guide member extending-transversely from said support in general alignment with said package engaging means and to one side of the binding plane, an element movable along said guide member toward and away from said package support, said element having an arm pivotally movable into and out of the binding plane about an axis generally parallel to the longitudinal axis of said guide member, first spring means resiliently urging said element away from said package support, and second spring means resiliently urging the arm of said element into the binding plane, whereby as said guide means trains the material about the package it will train a portion of the material over said arm and said arm will resiliently bear against and keep the material taut until said guide means nears completion of its movement about the package whereupon said arm will be pivoted by the binding material against the resistance of said second spring means to effect release of said material.

6. In a package binding machine having package support means and guide means movable about the package for training a length of material about the package in a binding plane; a mechanism for preventing the develop ment of slack in the material as it is trained about the package, said mechanism comprising an elongate guide member extending transversely from said package support means and parallel to and along one side of said binding plane, an element movable along said guide member toward and away from said package support means, said element having an arm pivotally movable into and out of the binding plane about an axis generally parallel to the longitudinal axis of said guide member, first spring means resiliently urging said element away from said package support means, and second spring means resiliently urging the arm of said element into the binding plane, whereby as said guide means trains the material about the package the material will be trained over and held taut by said arm until said guide means nears completion of its movement about the package whereupon said arm will pivot against the resistance of said second spring means to effect release of said material.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,198,440 4/40 Marchand 100-27 2,262,232 11/41 Harvey 10027 2,339,395 1/44 Harvey 100-27 2,356,644 8/44 Arelt 53210 2,356,904 8/44 Workman 100-26 2,608,150 8/52 Cranston 10027 2,743,562 5/56 Dawson et al. 5377 WALTER A. SCHEEL, Primary Examiner. 

2. IN A PACKAGE BINDING MECHANISM, PACKAGE SUPPORT MEANS, GUIDE MEANS ORBITALLY MOVABLE ABOUT A PACKAGE FROM A STARTING POSITION ADJACENT SAID PACKAGE SUPPORT MEANS FOR TRAINING A LENGTH OF MATERIAL ABOUT THE PACKAGE IN ABINDING PLANE, A MATERIAL ENGAGING ELEMENT MOUNTED WITHIN THE AREA CIRCUMSCRIBED BY SAID GUIDE MEANS IN ITS ORBITAL MOVEMENTG ABOUT THE PACKAGE, SAID ELEMENT BEING MOVABLE INTO AND OUT OF THE BINDING PLANE TO ENGAGE AND RELEASE THE MATERIAL ABOUT AN AXIS EXTENDING SUBSTANTIALLY PERPENDICULAR TO SAID SUPPORT MEANS AND BEING ADDITIONALLY MOVABLE TOWARD AND AWAY FROM SAID PACKAGE SUPPORT MEANS, AND MEANS FOR URGING SAID MATERIAL ENGAGING ELELMENT AWAY FROM SAID PACKAGE SUPPORT MEANS AND INTO THE BINDING PLANE, WHEREBY AS SAID GUIDE MEANS TRAINS THE MATERIAL ABOUT THE PACKAGE THE MATERIAL WILL BE TRAINED OVER AND HELD TAUT BY SAID MATERIAL ENGAGING ELEMENT. 